The main character in "A Jeweler's Eye for Flaw" is Sandy who got her name because of her mother's obsession with the cookie called Pecan Sandies. This was the beginning of Sandy's embarrassment and humiliation in life. At the point the story takes place, Sandy is "trapped in high school's interminable final year" (4) and is eagerly awaiting getting away from her past and starting a new life in college. She believes her new life will be different since she will be away from her mother who "becomes a ventriloquist" by using a teddy bear to say to Sandy what she "always thought but never voiced." (3).
             Sandy's mother is undeniably strange and is of the opinion that the world is filled with and ruled by idiots. She had been a music teacher for 15 years and suddenly lost her job because of budget cuts but her mother reacted as if she failed at her job and became more strange in her actions; "Lately my mother even dresses gloomily, in a black velour housecoat and her once dyed black hair, which is now almost entirely gray, hangs wearily down her back." (11) Music had been her passion and her life which was shown by her use of special stationary and how
             she dotted the "i" in her name, Lydia, with an eighth note; music was her true passion. Her mother would play the organ full blast like heard in the vampire movies. (10) Sandy was also bothered by her mother's actions in public, especially when it comes to Pecan Sandies. Sandy's mother would go through the grocery store holding up a package of Pecan Sandies as if portraying Scarlett O'Hara saying, "As God as my witness, I'll never go hungry again!" (4) The smell of Pecan Sandies was always on her mother's breath.
             Her mother would make theatrics out of most ordinary situations such as when she speaks to Sandy through an inanimate translator, Benjy the bear. ...